national news

Hey, Mr. POTUS … just stay in Florida

3 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Mr. President, this is likely the final blog entry I will direct to you, but I have something I want to get off my chest.

I get that you and the first lady are in Florida enjoying the Christmas season. Good deal, but here is what I want to ask you: Why don’t you just stay there and not bother returning to the White House? 

You have left a mess in Washington. The COVID relief bill contains some help for Americans who need it; it also funds the military; it also keeps the government running. Yet you say you won’t sign it. You screwed this up royally with your surprise reversal after your team negotiated the deal that ended up on your desk.

The chaos we all predicted would be the lowlight of your tenure as president is coming home to roost. Thanks to you!

So, just stay away from Washington. You don’t do any work there anyway, other than concoct traitorous methods to overturn an election that you lost handily. Just don’t bother darkening the door of our house, OK?

Hey, just stay near a phone. Someone can call you in case an emergency arises. You’re still the president until Jan. 20. Just remain available to make a decision that only you can make. Movers can pack up your stuff and send it to you and the first lady. They’ll know where to find you.

Beyond that, we don’t need you any longer. President Biden will be ready to step in when he takes his oath of office. What’s more, he is certain to honor the oath, which you have failed miserably to do.

I’ve had enough of you in my house. Stay away.

Merry Christmas … numbskull.

national news

Ready for return of presidential symbolism

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You can take this little item to the bank and remember that you saw it here for the first time.

President Biden will have a full plate of crises to confront when he settles in behind the Resolute Desk. He also must find time to engage in some of symbolism involved with the high office of president of the United States. Part of that involves conducting ceremonies; you know, the kind that honor Americans for the work they do on our behalf.

The nation’s highest civilian honor is called the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In the waning days of his time as vice president, Biden received the medal in a surprise ceremony at the White House. President Barack Obama stunned him during an event aimed ostensibly to honor the work that Biden had done as VP during the Obama administration.

Can there be a more fitting recipient for the Presidential Medal of Freedom than Barack Hussein Obama? And can there be a more fitting person to drape the medal around the former president’s neck than the current president, who after Jan. 20 will be Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.?

Obama has been vilified and ridiculed unjustly for the past four years by his immediate successor. I am one American patriot who would find it most appropriate for him to receive the nation’s highest civilian award to honor the work he did as a successful two-term president of the United States.

Just remember … you saw it here first.

local news, medical news

Update on COVID test

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I took the liberty the other day of announcing to the planet that my wife and I had taken a test to see if we had become infected with the COVID-19 virus.

We learned this morning we both tested negative. The young woman who called with the results was practically giddy when she gave us the news. I don’t know if she feared for us or whether she had grown weary of delivering bad news to patients who came to the McKinney clinic for coronavirus testing.

Whatever. We ain’t infected. We certainly ain’t sick.

We also are not out of the proverbial woods, even with the vaccine that is being injected into the arms of thousands of Americans each day.

Mask up, keep your distance, wash your hands … and keep your voice down, America.

national news

Waiting for it to hit the fan

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, my.

The fecal matter is likely to hit the fan. Donald Trump has jetted off to Mar-a-Lago to spend Christmas with his wife and children and, presumably, his grandkids.

You know what? He might not return to the White House after the holiday. That doesn’t bother me in the least. I don’t want him in there in the first place.

He is issuing pardons like there’s no tomorrow. Indeed, as far as the presidency is concerned, there are damn few of them awaiting Trump.

I’m not waiting for him to pardon his sons, his daughter, his son-in-law and maybe even himself. Were he to do that he would engrave his presidential legacy with the words: “Most Corrupt Man Ever Elected to the Nation’s Highest Office.” 

local news, State news

Might there be a new Texas legislative feud?

(AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas state Rep. Dade Phelan of Beaumont appears to be the next speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.

If he wins the vote among his colleagues, he’ll get to cross swords — maybe, possibly — with the guy who runs the other legislative body, the Senate down the hall. That would be Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Patrick has a habit of picking fights on occasion with legislators. He got mad at my pal, state GOP Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo, during the 2019 Legislature and stripped Seliger of his committee leadership posts. Why? Because Seliger spoke unkindly about a key Patrick aide.

Keep fighting the fight, Sen. Seliger | High Plains Blogger

During the 2017 session, Patrick wanted the Legislature to enact the infamous Bathroom Bill, the legislation that would have made it a requirement that folks use public restrooms in accordance with their “birth gender”; the bill was a clear act of discrimination against transgender individuals. The House speaker at the time, fellow Republican Joe Straus of San Antonio, would have none of that. He made sure the bill died during a special legislative session. My sense is that Patrick is still steaming over it.

Straus retired from politics. The next speaker, Dennis Bonnen of Angleton, served a single term and then got caught conspiring against fellow Republican lawmakers in a conversation with a far right wing political activist, Michael Quinn Sullivan. Bonnen bailed and is gone.

Now comes Rep. Phelan … apparently. I don’t know the young man, even though I once worked and lived in  Beaumont. I wish him well. I also hope he displays the kind of stones that Straus exhibited when Patrick tried to push him around over the Bathroom Bill.

Straus vs. Patrick: main event at special session | High Plains Blogger

Truth be told, I think Dan Patrick needs to be knocked a peg or three from his faux high horse. He offered to pay a reward to anyone who produced evidence of “massive voter fraud” in Texas during the 2020 presidential election; to date, he hasn’t handed out a nickel. Why? Because there was no fraud … the dipsh**.

Whatever happens during the Legislature that convenes Jan. 12, I look forward to watching it all unfold from my perch in Collin County. I just want the new House speaker — whoever emerges — to stand his ground against the bully who masquerades as the lieutenant governor.

legal news

Trump butchers rule of law

5 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Call me surprised, but not that Donald Trump would enact a scorched-Earth policy on his way out the door of the White House.

I am surprised at the brazenness of it all. Do I fear permanent damage to our democratic form of government. Not just yet, but the A**hole in Chief isn’t done yet.

The pardons he issued this week apparently portend more to come. Of all the pardons and commutations he has delivered, the set of them that gives me chills and fills me with the most rage involves the four convicted killers who worked as defense contractors in Iraq. Trump’s action on their behalf should give all of us serious cause for fear.

These individuals were convicted after a meticulous and thorough prosecution conducted by the Justice Department into reports that they opened fire on innocent civilians in Iraq. Their victims included women and children.

They are killers. They were serving time in federal prison. No longer. They now are free from their much-deserved bondage because the Crook in Chief doesn’t respect the rule of law. He has acted with utter ignorance of the pardon and commutation process and the protocol that served Justice Department officials well since the beginning of our republic.

How in the name of human decency can this man, Trump, live with himself. Oh, I forgot! He is shameless. Trump has no sense of what is just and fair.

I suppose no one should be shocked at what Trump has done on his way out of office. Some of us — such as me — noted long ago that this loon’s pre-politics background was geared toward one goal: self-enrichment. Public service remains to this very day a foreign concept to this individual. The pardons he dished out this week illustrate that cold and hard reality in stark and frightening terms.

I am going to make this point while realizing I likely am spitting into the wind. It is that Republicans in Congress — in the Senate and the House — need to stand up against the guy who lost a presidential election. He is about to leave office. Donald Trump must not be allowed to continue trashing the rule of law.

To think, too, that this was the moron who campaigned for re-election as a “law and order president.”

This individual is a disgrace.

legal news

Is the Texas AG seeking a pardon?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Reports are buzzing with the White House receiving a “flood” of requests from around the country regarding potential pardons from Donald Trump as he prepares to leave the White House.

So here’s the question: Has one of the requests come from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican ally of Trump who sought to nullify millions of votes cast in four states that went to President-elect Joe Biden?

Hey, it’s a fair question. Paxton is being investigated by the FBI on accusations that the AG has committed crimes while abusing the power of his office. Trump has the authority to pardon Paxton pre-emptively, which makes many of us wonder whether the lawsuit filed was intended to prove Paxton’s loyalty to Trump. Thus, he would be a candidate for a presidential pardon.

The U.S. Supreme Court tossed the lawsuit into the crapper, but the Texas AG is still out there … perhaps hoping for a final big favor from his hero Donald Trump.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 189: Recalling a glorious Christmas

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The structure you see here is the house my wife and I called home for more than two decades. I snapped this picture about four years ago, but the real story of this house commenced 24 years ago this week.

On Dec. 22, 1996, we closed on the purchase of this house. We had lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Amarillo for nearly two years. We decided it was time to sink our roots deeply into the Caprock. So we set out looking for some property on which we would build our house.

We found a lot in the far southwest corner of Amarillo. We had selected a floor plan that caught my wife’s attention. We met with the builder and in October 1996 his crews commenced work. Two months later, the house was finished.

We signed the papers. Then we moved in.

Why mention it here? Because our Christmas in 1996 turned out to be one of the more memorable holidays in our long and glorious life together.

We moved in three days before Christmas. We had boxes scattered in every room of our house. Our big stuff had been delivered: furniture, appliances, those kinds of things. Just seeing our belongings again after they had been stored away for nearly two years was in itself a Christmas blessing for us.

We opened boxes and found trinkets and assorted possessions we hadn’t seen while they were packed away and kept in storage. Every box we opened reacquainted us with our belongings.

Oh, what about a Christmas tree? Yes, we had one. It was a Norfolk pine that we had moved from Beaumont to Amarillo. It was a potted tree and was very much alive.

My wife found some Christmas lights and some ornaments among the boxes we opened. We strung the lights around the 4-foot tree along with a few ornaments. We then were able to place a few gifts around the base of the tree.

Christmas morning 1996 dawned like many others in our house. Our sons were there. We had a nice Christmas breakfast, opened our gifts and enjoyed ogling our new digs, which we had watched being built from the ground up.

It was home for a long time. Then came the moment we knew would occur when our granddaughter arrived in 2013. It was time to move closer to her in the Metroplex.

We made the move and bid goodbye to this special place that became all the more special because of a fabulous Christmas memory it provided for us.

national news

Trump goes ballistic … but why now?

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Do I have this right?

Didn’t the White House negotiate with congressional leaders on the nuts and bolts of a COVID-19 relief package and spending bill? Did they act with Donald Trump’s imprimatur? Or didn’t they?

And where was Donald Trump his own self during all of this back and forth over the course of several months?

Didn’t Trump say once or maybe twice that he would sign the bill when it arrived at his desk?

So, what the hell is happening now? Trump says Congress needs to clean up the legislation, provide $2,000 payments per person and get rid of unnecessary add-ons before he would sign it.

At one level, I don’t really disagree with what Trump wants. I do disagree, though, with the timing of it and the appearance of his demand. His negotiating team hammered out the particulars and now Trump says he opposed to it.

His refusal to sign it now puts the whole process in dire peril. He is threatening to shut down the government. Folks who need the help won’t get it. The COVID pandemic is raging on and on. Trump is doing nothing to speak to the issues relating to the virus.

What the hell is going on? Chaos, anyone?

education news

An ed secretary with knowledge of public schools!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Imagine that, if you dare.

President-elect Joe Biden has presented to the nation a nominee for education secretary with actual knowledge, experience and appreciation for public education. Let this soak in for a moment.

Connecticut education commissioner Miguel Cardona is Biden’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Education. Cardona would replace Betsy DeVos, who — to be charitable — knows nothing about the public school system she was nominated to lead in 2017.

Betsy DeVos for ed secretary? No way! | High Plains Blogger

DeVos was a do-nothing education secretary who was educated herself in private schools, who sent her own children to private schools and who has been a champion of the movement to take public money out of our public school system and directing it to private schools.

Cardona at the very least has hands-on experience as a public school student, as a public school educator and as head of a statewide public education system.

I welcome this nomination.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience